Alphabet Soup: Part-time Corpse
by Windfighter
Summary: It is morning and Emil and Lalli hasn't showed up after they split the party. It is time for Sigrun to do some serious backtracking.


One more Alphabet Soup Challenge and I'm broadening my horizons by writing about Sigrun this time! Because gosh blast it, I had to follow up on this idea!

 **Warnings:** Character deaths, some blood, suicide, grosslings, water, cold, guns. A bad narrator.

Enjoy!

* * *

 _"I'm backtracking tomorrow morning, if they don't show up!"_

They didn't show up. Sigrun hung the rifle on her back, glared at Mikkel.

"I'm going alone."

"I can accept that, and we are coming with you."

"No", Sigrun put on her best Captain-face. "You either wait here or continue escorting the civilian to the shore. And you listen to him while I'm gone. Kitty, you're staying with them as well."

"Sigrun, this is unlike you."

"Is it really?"

The two stared at each other, Mikkel crossed his arms over his chest and Sigrun put her hands to her sides. Eventually Mikkel looked away and Sigrun grabbed the medic bag Mikkel had packed incase the two missing people needed first aid. She waved goodbye and left their temporary camp. The rain that had started during the night quickly drenched her and she gritted her teeth. They should have just grabbed the scout instead of leaving him behind.

Their tracks from the day before had disappeared, but she recognized the surroundings enough to backtrack. She got to the city without finding any tracks after the boys, continued into the city. It was quiet, except for the raindrops on the roofs. Everything was exactly as it had been when they passed the day before except... Sigrun stopped in her tracks. One of the houses had collapsed, crashed and it looked like something _incredible large_ had jumped out of it.

 _Not good_ , she thought. If something large had woken up, ambushed them... Maybe they were dead, eaten, and it would be her fault. _I shouldn't have let the scout stay behind._ She kept going, kept her senses peeled for anything out of the ordinary. Anything, like a pack of squid wolves huddled together in one of the houses. Sigrun froze. That was a whole lot of trolls. She couldn't stand still and wait for them to go away, there wasn't time. They didn't look to be eating on something, so maybe they hadn't found the boys, maybe Mikkel had been right that the twig had found a safe place for the two of them.

 _Okay then, only one thing to do._ Sigrun grabbed her gun and started running. Bullets rained over the trolls, took some of them down, but the others started hunting Sigrun. _I need a distraction._ She noticed a wooden pole supporting a house and as she closed in on it she hoped that it would be as rotten as everything else in the city. Her left elbow collided with it, she heard the bone crack and then the pole gave way as well. The roof started collapsing and she hurried her steps again, got out of the way just as the ceiling fell. She heard screams from the trolls, but some was still following her.

A tentacle grabbed her leg and she fell to the ground, dropped her gun. It slid away and she turned around, pulled her knife instead. It sank into the troll's head, but five more appeared, their sharp tentacle-things cut through her clothes, her skin, dug themselves into her arms, her legs, her sides. She clenched her teeth, pain was nothing, she had experienced it before. One of the trolls stood above her, stood on its hindlegs. Sigrun closed her eyes and then something sharp punctured her heart, the ground got red below her. The trolls pulled away from her, looked at each other. The hunt was over almost before it had started. Sigrun's hand twitched, grabbed the knife again.

"There's more where that came from."

She managed to decapitate one of the trolls before they noticed her, then their tentacles caught her. Her legs were stuck again, two tentacles in her stomach and one straight through her throat. Blood filled her lungs and then she was on her knees again, on the ground. She stopped breathing for one, two, three seconds as her wounds healed up. Her breathing started again and she got back to her feet.

"Ghost, get your ass here!"

Black materia poured from her body, gathered into a shape next to it. The trolls looked at her, prepared to attack, but the mummy-looking ghost next to her took out three of them, Sigrun took out two. One of the remaining trolls sliced her back and the ghost returned the gestured, ripped the troll in two.

"You have to crush the heads, we've been over this!" Sigrun yelled as she did just that on the half troll.

"Crush the heads", the ghost repeated in a echoing, squeaky voice. "I'm not going to, I'm not an idiot!"

Sigrun rolled her eyes, let the ghost take out the last three trolls.

"I hate dying", she said, wiped the sweat off her forehead. "At least my arm is finally good again, should have died a long time ago."

"Can't let anyone know."

"Yes yes, I know. You can go again now."

"We're not waiting!"

"You should know more words already. Shoo."

The ghost disappeared and Sigrun pulled a hand through her hair, looked at her torn clothes. It'd be hard explaining that for the others. At least the bleeding wound on her back should be enough to explain that tear. She put the knife in its sheath, fetched her gun and looked around. Hopefully she wouldn't meet any more trolls, it would be a while before she could use the ghost again. Sigrun looked around, saw signs that the giant had hunted something. _Wonder if the twig got them to safety._ She started walking again, followed the broken buildings and the crushed road. It wasn't long until she found pieces of a broken, cut-up giant lying halfway into the water.

"Oh sh-"

Sigrun wasn't entierly sure what to make of it. Had it meet something bigger? Sigrun hoped not, because it was a darn large giant and she wouldn't be able to fight something that large even with help from the Ghost. She climbed on top of it, looked in all directions. No signs of the boys. Had they even made it this far? She sat down on the floorboard, rested her head against her hands for a minute. She needed to make a descision. Should she randomly search for them? Try to make a grid and search logically? Give up since they probably had been eaten by whatever killed the giant she was sitting on? Her back was hurting pretty bad and her clothes was starting to feel sticky from the blood. Giving up kind of sounded like a good idea, but she couldn't just abandon them.

Movement under her. Sigrun tried to grab on to the floorboard, but she slid off it, down into the water. The giant fell over her, pressed her to the sea floor. She held her breath, tried to push the troll off herself, tried to dig a hole in the sand to be able to pull herself out. Drowning was by far the worst death she knew, she didn't want it again, didn't... Water filled her lungs when she couldn't hold her breath any longer. _Not again._ Darkness, a few seconds of darkness. She gasped as her life returned, pulled new water into her lungs, kept trying to press out from under the giant. Darkness again, another few seconds. She'd keep dying until she got out of the water. It was cold around her, and the seconds she was awake she shivered hard, but kept struggling, kept trying to break free. _I need to start staying away from water._ She had been 5 the first time she drowned, before she had learned how to swim. 13 the second time, dragged under by a sjødraug. At 16 and 21, both times because a troll had fallen over her into the water. _Just like this time._ She lost count of the number of times she woke up again, but eventually she broke free, swam to the surface. She gasped as she broke it, finally free, finally out of the deathzone. She just needed to get ashore.

Sigrun's muscles ached. The cold water made it hard to swim, but her back wasn't hurting any longer. The only good part of dying – you woke up healed from all your damages. She let out a sigh. This was why she never backtracked, especially not together with someone else. Normal people stayed dead. _Like Tuuri..._ She closed her eyes, opened them again. She couldn't let herself be distracted, then she'd lose the rest of the team as well. She was tired when she reached the shore, hung a while from the edge of the harbour. She couldn't pull herself up, she was too tired after the swim and it was too high up for her. She let out a sigh, kept swimming along the wall.

Ten minutes, twenty. If it wasn't for Sigrun's regenerative ability she would have been dead ten times over by now. To be fair it probably had been that many times already. Normal people only had to live through it once, but she... Sigrun clenched her teeth, finally found a place to climb up. Something rolled under her foot and she stopped, glanced at it. One of Emil's fuel cans. So at least the little Swede was still up and running, or at least had been and had gotten this far away from the giant. _What happened last night?_ Sigrun kicked the can, gasoline spilled out over the dead grass, and she followed the can, kicked it again, followed it. She couldn't see any tracks, so this was about as good as it was gonna get in her search for them.

Growling. Of course. Sigrun stopped kicking the can, looked around. Beasts this time, ten of them looking at her.

"Ghost, I might need you again."

She grabbed her knife, stared at the beasts, waited. They knew she was there, she was certain of it. Why didn't they attack? Sigrun moved slowly, tried to go around the pack. Their eyes followed her, but they didn't move. Did they wait for her to run? Did they want a hunt? Or was it something else? Sigrun was glad she was alone so she didn't have to worry about them attacking anyone else.

Then the attack came, not from the front, but from the back. Something wrapped around her chest, held her, while something else dug into her arm, pulled at it. She screamed as tendons snapped, ligaments snapped. The skin at her shoulder started tearing and her scream got louder. Then it came off. Sigrun's scream died, she blacked out. The pressure around her chest loosened as the beast holding her went to fight with the other over the arm. Sigrun's eyes opened again, she saw the other beasts coming closer.

"Ghost..."

The pain was intense, made her head spin. She slapped her hand over the wound, tried to keep the blood in. Slowly she got to her feet, almost fell over again. The beasts noticed her, turned towards her again.

"Ghost, get to work."

The black materia once again formed next to her. A little less dense than it had been last time she called it and she knew she was about to black out again. _I just need a minute._

"What are you waiting for? There's only twelve of them!"

"The little Swede was right."

"Just get them already!"

"It's just a bear!"

The ghost rushed towards them, started with the two fighting over Sigrun's arm before moving towards the others. Sigrun dropped to her knees, tried to will herself to not faint. She hated fainting, it was worse than dying, you never knew where you'd wake up or if it'd be too late to fix whatever damage you had gotten. Too late because by then someone _knew._ Like that time she fell from the roof and broke her back.

Sigrun shook her head, she couldn't let herself be consumed by memories, she had to focus. Her ghost took down another three beasts, one more and Sigrun sighed internally.

"The heads", her voice was barely a whisper.

"I understand when something is my fault!"

"Then you freaking make it right..."

Sigrun could only do so much to stay awake, to stay sitting. She couldn't make this right, couldn't bring Tuuri back. She didn't like dying, but she should have done so earlier. Then maybe Tuuri would still have been alive... She clenched her teeth, there was no point thinking about it now. The ghost crushed the skull of the last beast and Sigrun grinned towards it.

"Good job. Get out of my face now."

"Wasn't that the AWESOMEST!?"

"Just be glad no one else can hear you. I'll see you later."

It would take maybe five minutes for her to bleed to death, ten if she kept pressure on it, not at all if the cold would make her vessels close before that. Winter made estimating her death tricky. Did she have time to wait? Her hand fell down from her shoulder, grabbed the knife again. She hated commiting suicide. She plain hated dying. The pain was not something you got used to, you never did, but sometimes it was your only option. She opened her coat, the knife dug into her flesh, just below the ribcage and slightly upwards so it would hit the heart, then pulled out again. Sigrun's body fell to the ground, coloured it red and then it stopped.

"Let's try not to die again", she muttered when she woke up.

She stretched her arms, her legs, looked at her hand. All five fingers back. Was it still her arm? The hand fell over her face and she groaned. There wasn't time to get existential, as long as she still thought she was herself she would be. She pushed herself off the ground, looked around. Her eyes fell on the building the beasts had been huddled against. It looked like some type of religious building and Sigrun walked towards it. She could see movement inside it, slowly opened the door to it. City boy stood there, grasping his gun tightly and aiming it at her.

"Whoa, easy boy, it's just me!"

He didn't take it down. Sigrun tried grinning towards him, moved a step forwards and Emil took a step to the left, placed himself between Sigrun and Lalli. Sigrun blinked when she saw Lalli's body on the floor, wrapped in Emil's coat.

"Is he dead?"

"Sleeping", Emil answered and lowered his gun slightly. "What are you? What happened out there?"

"Listen buddy..." Sigrun took a step forward, but Emil raised the gun again.

Sigrun laughed, but stopped in her tracks and lifted her hands.

"You gonna shoot me? I know how well you aim, buddy."

"Maybe I will!"

His voice was scared, insecure, and Sigrun knew what had happened. She closed her eyes, let out a sigh.

"...how much did you see?"

"Your arm... You didn't have your arm. The beasts got ripped apart by nothing. And you..." he glanced at the place she had put the knife. "You killed yourself."

Sigrun pulled her hand through her hair. Emil wouldn't shoot her, she was certain of it, and he'd only be able to hit by mistake. Had she been rational, like Mikkel, she'd probably decide that killing Emil was her only option now, because Emil knew, Emil might tell someone. Could she explain it to him when she didn't really understand it herself? _There's gotta be some way out of this._ Sigrun looked around. A swift hit in the head could fix it, if she hit the right spot, but getting it just right was practically impossible. Emil stared at her, waited. He lowered his gun a little again.

"I admire how you're willing to go up against someone immortal to protect your buddy there."

Emil's grip around the gun tightened, but he didn't lift it. Sigrun was probably handling this right.

"Listen Emil..."

She had no idea what to say. _I'm immortal._ She just said that and it didn't explain anything. _I can die, but I get right back up again._ She couldn't explain how. _I don't know how, it just happens. It's not like I wanted it._

"I'm sorry you had to see it."

Was Emil's eyes tearing up? Sigrun gave a slight laugh.

"You're not about to wet yourself, are you? We had a close enough call with Mikkel last night when farmboy wouldn't let him take care of business."

"S-shut up!"

He still didn't lift his gun, but he was panicking a little. Sigrun glanced at Lalli, wanted to get Emil to think about something else.

"So what happened to you two?"

"There was a giant... Lalli stopped it somehow, but then everything exploded and Lalli was out cold and we were floating away from the harbour... We made shore and I managed to get us here... I tried to make it safe..."

Sigrun looked around, noticed the runes on the walls. They were a reddish-brown colour, shaped like the ones Reynir had drawn on the tent and backpacks and Sigrun glanced at Emil again. Emil blushed, looked away and hid his arm behind his back. Sigrun just managed to catch how red his sleeve was.

"Emil, is it blood? Is it _your_ blood?"

"I didn't have anything else and you said the gods prefer blood..."

"Thought you didn't believe in the gods!"

Sigrun went up to him and hit his shoulder, and Emil quickly moved between her and Lalli, shoved her away.

"I've seen things..."

"You talking about the twig?"

Emil nodded, kept his eyes on Sigrun and Sigrun let out a sigh.

"Listen Emil, we can keep this up all day if we want to, but Mikkel is waiting for us and we have a boat to catch."

" _What are you?_ " Emil asked again.

"I..." Sigrun looked around, back at Emil and her shoulder slouched. "I don't know, Emil. I can't die, I just rise again, you just saw. I'm still the same Sigrun as I've always been though!"

Usually, Sigrun would have grinned, but this time she didn't, she knew it'd only scare Emil off, she could see it in his eyes.

"You're the only one who knows, except my parents. It's not dangerous for the people around me."

 _Except for if Ghost runs amok._ It had happened once, when she was 13 and had just started in the Norwegian army. She prefered not to think about it. Emil put his gun to his back again and Sigrun let her bag fall to the floor. She tried smiling at him and he took a step closer to Lalli. _Still scared._

"I promise I don't need to feast on human flesh to keep living or something, Emil. It's perfectly safe around me. Lemme see that arm of yours, since Mikkel forced me to bring all this anyway."

Emil pushed his own bag closer to Lalli before taking one step forward, two steps. Sigrun sank down on the floor, waited for Emil to do the same. He looked away, then looked at her again.

"Could you... back away? Just a little?"

Sigrun groand, wanted to protest, but realized it wasn't Emil trying to give her orders, he was only trying to keep Lalli safe, and she did what he asked. Emil's shoulders relaxed, he sank down on the floor infront of her and offered her the arm. Then he blinked and pulled it back again.

"I can't... like you did. Don't chop it off."

"I'm not gonna amputate your arm, stupid. Come on now. And then we can get back and keep walking. You _do_ want to get back, don't you?"

Emil nodded and offered his arm again. Sigrun rolled the sleeve up and inspected the arm. It was covered in cuts of different depth and length. Some of them would have required stitches to heal cleanly, but it would be too late when they got back, she was certain of it. Emil looked away as she started cleaning it off.

"You're gonna get some scars, you know."

"I know, but... It's okay, as long as it kept him safe."

Some of them was still bleeding, or had started bleeding again when Emil prepared to defend Lalli against her. Sigrun wrapped his arm up, patted his shoulder. Her mind wandered to the beasts that had stood outside the building, that had not gone inside.

"You know, I think they did. Good job, for a city boy."

"Sigrun..."

Emil looked at his knees and Sigrun waited a little, looked at Lalli. She still hadn't seen any actual sign that Lalli was alive, but if Emil said he was...

"How does it feel? To die?"

"Any specific or just in general?"

Sigrun was a hundred percent certain about why Emil was asking, but she wanted it to come from him.

"...Just in general. If it's okay..."

"It's... very painful", Sigrun closed her eyes as memories of all her deaths flooded her, "but it can also be a relief. To let go of the pain that haunted you and move on. But mostly it's just painful and stupid."

She got up from the floor again, offered Emil a hand.

"We can talk more about it in Dalsnes, if you feel like stopping by sometime. I'll even let you kill me."

She grinned and Emil gave a slight laugh. Great, he wasn't panicked any more, wasn't afraid of her. Still wary though, but she could understand it.

"You strong enough to carry the twig? I can help you get him up."

He hesitated again, then nodded and accepted her hand. Sigrun pulled Emil to his feet, lifted Lalli off the floor and placed him over Emil's shoulder.

"Best way to carry him. I'll take care of any beasts. Ready to head out?"

"...Sigrun, are you a mage?"

"It would explain stuff, wouldn't it? But no, am not. Come on now", she opened the door, smiled at Emil. "We have a boat to catch."

* * *

A/N: So yeah... I finished watching Ajin on Netflix just a day ago and I noticed how most of the ajins seemed to have redish eyes and my mind just went "Who else do we know with reddish eyes?"  
 _Sigrun_.  
Okay sure, hers are violet/purple but that's kind of red! Anyway, that turned into "Sigrun is an Ajin" which then turned into "...okay, let's kill her." You've just read the resulting story!

...I hope it didn't suck too much!


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